转载：An Interview with Isabel Allende
Isabelle Allende (An interview)
By: AmeriSpan
An Interview with Isabel Allende
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
Isabel Allende took the literary world by storm with her 1982 publication of The House of the Spirits, a novel which chronicled four generations of a Chilean family against the backdrop of Chile’s brutal history. The New York Times called the book "a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present and future of Latin America." Who was this author whose first novel had some comparing her work to those of the great Latin American writers of this century?
Born in Lima, Peru in 1942 and raised in Chile, Bolivia, Europe and the Middle East, Isabel Allende worked as a journalist in Chile until the 1973 military coup. Allende fled her homeland, settling in Venezuela with her husband, son and daughter. "I felt, as many Chileans did, that my life had been cut into pieces, and that I had to start over again," she recalls.
Paula, Allende’s first non-fiction book, is a deeply moving memoir inspired by the tragic fatal illness of her 28 year-old daughter. It began as a letter from mother to daughter that becomes a meditation on a mother’s life as a daughter’s death. It became an international bestseller when it was published in 1994.
Ever since the tragic events of 1991 & 1992, Allende has concentrated her considerable energies on the few essentials in her life: family, writing and, fortunately for us, helping those in need. We are grateful for her collaboration in this project.
Interview
Two days before a European tour to promote a new book, Ms. Allende set aside an hour to chat with AmeriSpan. We discussed everything from her contemporaries, to the spiritual world, to ways she would like to be remembered. Excerpts from our delightful conversation follow.
AS: Because you are Latina, it is tempting to assume that other Latin American writers have influenced your work. Who are the writers that have been role models or have influenced you?
Allende: I grew up reading at a time when there was no television in Chile and we went very seldom to the movies. So, I was trained to read…. I read all the Russian novelists. When I was ten I was reading Shakespeare. Have you seen the movie Shakespeare in Love?
AS: No, I haven’t seen it yet.
Allende: Well, go see it! When I saw it everything came back, all the fascination of my childhood with the stories, not the words in this case, because I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the beauty of the language. Also, I grew up reading science fiction, which was very important for me. Then in my twenties I started reading the Latin American writers. I belong to the first generation of Latin American writers who grew up reading other Latin American writers. The previous generation, which was called the "boom" generation of Latin American writers: Garcｉa Mａrquez, Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, all of those…
AS: …Pablo Neruda?
Allende: Neruda, Donoso, all of them - they were a little older than me - grew up reading North American and European authors in translation. They were all writing at the time, but the books were not well distributed, so they couldn’t read each other…
I have also been very influenced by the movies. I’m a movie junkie, I see everything and I love the stories, the images, the color. Sometimes a scene in a movie can trigger a story for me.
AS: I have a colleague who saw you at a publicity event, talking about The House of the Spirits. She remembers you saying "See the movie, it’s better than the book!". Apparently, you have been pleased with the movie adaptations of your books?
Allende: Yes. I have been honored that they have been chosen to be adapted for the cinema, although the story may not be the same. I think they have done a good job.
AS: With your busy schedule of writing and traveling, do you have time to read now? And do you have any recent favorite books?
Allende: It goes in spurts. For example, if I’m writing a novel, I usually read everything that regards the scenes in the novel. That was the case with my latest book, which is a historical novel that takes place in California in 1849 as the time of the gold rush. So, I read a lot of stuff about that period. Therefore, I didn’t have much time for other things, but I try to read women writers from ethnic minorities in the United States. They are great narrators. They are really revitalizing the old craft of storytelling. Chicanas, Black Americans, Native Americans, Chinese and Japanese Americans are writing great books.
AS: There does seem to be a recent crop of talented, multi-cultural authors, especially from Latin America right now, that are living and writing in the U.S. Do you think this trend of writers blending cultures will grow as the Latino population grows in the U.S.?
Allende: I think it’s inevitable. This is a country made up of immigrants. There is a Jewish literature, an Irish literature, an Italian literature, now it is happening with the Latinos… The children of the [first generation] immigrants want to become American, but the grandchildren want to recover their roots…the same happened, by the way, with the Irish, the Jews, and the Italians. It’s the third and fourth generation Italians that have been writing [for example] The Godfather, not the first generation.
AS: I am fascinated by the art of translation. It seems such a difficult task, not the translating of the words, but to capture the feel of a book. First of all, into how many languages have your books been translated?
Allende: 27, I think.
AS: Do you have any say or choice as to who does the translating, at least for the English editions?
Allende: I always have the same translator, Margaret Sayers Peden. She has translated all my books except the first one. We work very closely and she translates everything I do, practically.
AS: When you were forty, you were afraid of being "mediocre" for the rest of your life. Obviously, that has changed!
Allende: I have had a very strange destiny, really. Things have happened to me that I never expected.
AS: At this point - now that you are successful, critically and commercially – do you think of the future in terms of goals and projects? Or do you get inspirations?
Allende: Since my daughter died, I don’t think of the future. I may die tomorrow, too. She was 27 years old, she had a life to live and something happened. So, I don’t make any plans, I live one day at a time, I don’t have any goals or ambitions. I try to do the best today…I really have become very centered in the present, because I know that things happen, always. You know my life is about change, it is about great losses and great gains that I never expected. I just try to live today the best I can.
AS: I know you generally start your books on January 8…Did two weeks ago [January 8, 1999] see the start of a new book?
Allende: No, not this time. I will be traveling most of the year promoting this other book. So, I will probably start thinking of something for the year 2000 and start researching.
AS: When will we be able to see your current book in the U.S.?
Allende: My books are always published first in Spanish, in Spain. So, it will be published now in Spain, and probably very soon in Italian…and in English by the fall, probably September or October.
AS: Even in Spanish, it won’t be available in a Borders or Barnes and Noble?
Allende: Yes, in Spanish it will be available…HarperCollins distributes it here.
AS: I want to switch to politics for a moment…Do the events [in Chile] of 1973 still shape your political opinions?
Allende: I think the events of 1973 marked my generation and divided the country in Chile. No one remained neutral after that. For 25 years, people have tried to silence the truth and to be cautious not to provoke any upheaval…because they fear the military and they fear repression and also they fear confrontation. But I think there will be no healing before we start talking about it. My life was shaped by that event because I had to leave my country. When I left my country, my job, my family, my house, everything, I was forced to find something inside me that maybe was always there, this strength that was always there, but I had not had any need to use it. From that experience and from the losses came my first novel. So, I think I am a novelist because of the military coup.
AS: You talk a lot about the spiritual world in your books and you mention having learned the ability to decipher you dreams.
Allende: Some [of them].
AS: Do you believe that dreams speak to everyone? And if they do, what do they tell us?
Allende: Dreams are a way we have of tapping into an unconscious world and getting information that we have gathered, but don’t even know we have stored somewhere. I think that you can develop the ability to remember the dream and in the long run decipher the symbols, which are not the same for everybody. For example, my mother is terrified of snakes. If my mother has a dream about snakes, it’s a nightmare and for her it has a bad meaning. However, if an Indian shaman dreams of snakes, snakes do not have an evil meaning for him or for her.
AS: The dreams are in context of the person who is dreaming them.
Allende: Of course! The culture, and their own experience. What happens in my case, because I have been paying attention to my dreams for so long, I know what they mean most of the time, I can then be more aware of the conscious world. For example, I always give this example about dreaming of babies when I’m writing. (And I only dream of babies when I’m writing!) I have discovered, or I think, that the baby in the dream is the book in real life. And what happens to the baby in the dream, usually, is something that I’m not aware of that is happening to the book. For example, a baby that cries with the voice of an old man. So, the next day I remember the dream, I write it down and then I go to my work and I go through the text again because, most probably, the narrative voice is off, is wrong. So that helps me.
AS: You write [in Paula] very honestly about extremely personal, sometimes very painful experiences. Do your fans approach you sometimes, having met you for the first time, and think they know you through your writing?
Allende: It’s amazing. I find people in the street who treat me as if I was their relative. I also receive an incredible amount of mail from all over the world. At the beginning when the book first was published, I had to hire two people just to open the mail and sort it by languages! If I read the word "Paula" in the letter I knew it was about that book. All those letters were the most moving experience, really. I still do receive many of them…and most of them are about Paula. So, I feel that I have been exposed a lot, but on the other hand, I don’t feel more vulnerable because of that, I feel stronger. In a way, people share with me their own losses.
AS: You have lived in more countries than a lot of people will visit in their lifetime. What has your classroom of the world taught you that couldn’t have been learned in [a regular] school?
Allende: I think one thing you learn very fast is that people are very much alike. The similarities are many more than the differences. We cling to little differences, so little that they are practically insignificant, and that can create a war…While the similarities are extraordinary. If you go to Tibet or Irian Jaya or Africa or South America, you find that mothers love their children the same way, that people fear death and infirmity the same way. We react emotionally very much alike. Once the barrier of the difference in color or cloths or shape is surpassed, then you realize that you can be brothers or sisters with most people! There are always some jerks, of course! (laughter).
AS: We’ve talked about cultural similarities, let’s touch upon some cultural differences. What do you think about the attitude towards sex in Latin America vs. the U.S.?
Allende: In the United States, abortion is legal, sexual education is given at school, the pill is available. In Latin America this is exceptional…The real important things, we [in Latin America] don’t have, however, we have a more open attitude towards sex. Something like what happened to Clinton would have never happened in a Latin Country. People there don’t understand what’s going on. They say, well he had an affair and so what? They even think that it’s virile, that it’s a macho thing…
AS: I was in Ecuador when the news broke. The headline that appeared in one of the Tabloid papers announced in huge letters, "MACHO MAN" with pictures of all of Clinton’s women around it. And I thought, ‘wow", it is just night and day…
Allende: Night and day. So, here there is a very puritanical public attitude, but in private people have more freedom. At 15, children have sex, everything is available, there is a lot of sex on TV and in advertising, much more than in Latin America.
AS: You have moved between cultures so often, voluntarily and otherwise. Do you now feel comfortable in any situation?
Allende: Mostly, I do. I adapt easily, I’m pretty flexible, I can take a lot of discomfort. But I’m not a socialite and will never be. So, I don’t feel comfortable in social events – and I’m invited to a lot! When I travel my greatest fear is that I will be at a cocktail party in some socialite’s house. That terrifies me!
AS: Do you ever feel like you are in a cultural netherworld, half adapted to all cultures, but never fully a part of one?
Allende: My life story has been that I am a foreigner, always. When I was a child, my parents were diplomats and I was always traveling in different countries. In Chile, I feel totally at home, but I don’t want to live in Chile. I want to live here with my children, my grandchildren and my husband. Here, the first thing is the language barrier. The fact that you have to be in another language makes you another person. I’m sure that you feel different when you speak in Spanish.
AS: My friends say I change quite a bit when I speak Spanish.
Allende: You change. Everybody does, and so do I when I speak English or French. I feel very foreign, but I’m comfortable with that. At the beginning I really tried to blend in, I don’t even try anymore.
AS: I want to end our conversation discussing your legacy. People think of you as a feminist writer. You have placed women in your novels as strong protagonists; you have talked about sensual pleasure without guilt in Aphrodite and other books. How would you like to be remembered as a writer?
Allende: As a good storyteller.
AS: …and as a lover?
Allende: I would like to be remembered as a playful lover, although I know that I won’t! (laughter) I’m too intense.
AS: …and as a mother?
Allende: You know, "mother" is an adjective for me, so I would have to say "motherly". My whole life has been determined by the fact that I had these two children. Everything changed in my life and in me because of this. I know that I will be remembered as an overwhelming, totalitarian mother. I would like to be remembered as a very generous one.
By: AmeriSpan
An Interview with Isabel Allende
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction
Isabel Allende took the literary world by storm with her 1982 publication of The House of the Spirits, a novel which chronicled four generations of a Chilean family against the backdrop of Chile’s brutal history. The New York Times called the book "a unique achievement, both personal witness and possible allegory of the past, present and future of Latin America." Who was this author whose first novel had some comparing her work to those of the great Latin American writers of this century?
Born in Lima, Peru in 1942 and raised in Chile, Bolivia, Europe and the Middle East, Isabel Allende worked as a journalist in Chile until the 1973 military coup. Allende fled her homeland, settling in Venezuela with her husband, son and daughter. "I felt, as many Chileans did, that my life had been cut into pieces, and that I had to start over again," she recalls.
Paula, Allende’s first non-fiction book, is a deeply moving memoir inspired by the tragic fatal illness of her 28 year-old daughter. It began as a letter from mother to daughter that becomes a meditation on a mother’s life as a daughter’s death. It became an international bestseller when it was published in 1994.
Ever since the tragic events of 1991 & 1992, Allende has concentrated her considerable energies on the few essentials in her life: family, writing and, fortunately for us, helping those in need. We are grateful for her collaboration in this project.
Interview
Two days before a European tour to promote a new book, Ms. Allende set aside an hour to chat with AmeriSpan. We discussed everything from her contemporaries, to the spiritual world, to ways she would like to be remembered. Excerpts from our delightful conversation follow.
AS: Because you are Latina, it is tempting to assume that other Latin American writers have influenced your work. Who are the writers that have been role models or have influenced you?
Allende: I grew up reading at a time when there was no television in Chile and we went very seldom to the movies. So, I was trained to read…. I read all the Russian novelists. When I was ten I was reading Shakespeare. Have you seen the movie Shakespeare in Love?
AS: No, I haven’t seen it yet.
Allende: Well, go see it! When I saw it everything came back, all the fascination of my childhood with the stories, not the words in this case, because I wasn’t old enough to appreciate the beauty of the language. Also, I grew up reading science fiction, which was very important for me. Then in my twenties I started reading the Latin American writers. I belong to the first generation of Latin American writers who grew up reading other Latin American writers. The previous generation, which was called the "boom" generation of Latin American writers: Garcｉa Mａrquez, Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, all of those…
AS: …Pablo Neruda?
Allende: Neruda, Donoso, all of them - they were a little older than me - grew up reading North American and European authors in translation. They were all writing at the time, but the books were not well distributed, so they couldn’t read each other…
I have also been very influenced by the movies. I’m a movie junkie, I see everything and I love the stories, the images, the color. Sometimes a scene in a movie can trigger a story for me.
AS: I have a colleague who saw you at a publicity event, talking about The House of the Spirits. She remembers you saying "See the movie, it’s better than the book!". Apparently, you have been pleased with the movie adaptations of your books?
Allende: Yes. I have been honored that they have been chosen to be adapted for the cinema, although the story may not be the same. I think they have done a good job.
AS: With your busy schedule of writing and traveling, do you have time to read now? And do you have any recent favorite books?
Allende: It goes in spurts. For example, if I’m writing a novel, I usually read everything that regards the scenes in the novel. That was the case with my latest book, which is a historical novel that takes place in California in 1849 as the time of the gold rush. So, I read a lot of stuff about that period. Therefore, I didn’t have much time for other things, but I try to read women writers from ethnic minorities in the United States. They are great narrators. They are really revitalizing the old craft of storytelling. Chicanas, Black Americans, Native Americans, Chinese and Japanese Americans are writing great books.
AS: There does seem to be a recent crop of talented, multi-cultural authors, especially from Latin America right now, that are living and writing in the U.S. Do you think this trend of writers blending cultures will grow as the Latino population grows in the U.S.?
Allende: I think it’s inevitable. This is a country made up of immigrants. There is a Jewish literature, an Irish literature, an Italian literature, now it is happening with the Latinos… The children of the [first generation] immigrants want to become American, but the grandchildren want to recover their roots…the same happened, by the way, with the Irish, the Jews, and the Italians. It’s the third and fourth generation Italians that have been writing [for example] The Godfather, not the first generation.
AS: I am fascinated by the art of translation. It seems such a difficult task, not the translating of the words, but to capture the feel of a book. First of all, into how many languages have your books been translated?
Allende: 27, I think.
AS: Do you have any say or choice as to who does the translating, at least for the English editions?
Allende: I always have the same translator, Margaret Sayers Peden. She has translated all my books except the first one. We work very closely and she translates everything I do, practically.
AS: When you were forty, you were afraid of being "mediocre" for the rest of your life. Obviously, that has changed!
Allende: I have had a very strange destiny, really. Things have happened to me that I never expected.
AS: At this point - now that you are successful, critically and commercially – do you think of the future in terms of goals and projects? Or do you get inspirations?
Allende: Since my daughter died, I don’t think of the future. I may die tomorrow, too. She was 27 years old, she had a life to live and something happened. So, I don’t make any plans, I live one day at a time, I don’t have any goals or ambitions. I try to do the best today…I really have become very centered in the present, because I know that things happen, always. You know my life is about change, it is about great losses and great gains that I never expected. I just try to live today the best I can.
AS: I know you generally start your books on January 8…Did two weeks ago [January 8, 1999] see the start of a new book?
Allende: No, not this time. I will be traveling most of the year promoting this other book. So, I will probably start thinking of something for the year 2000 and start researching.
AS: When will we be able to see your current book in the U.S.?
Allende: My books are always published first in Spanish, in Spain. So, it will be published now in Spain, and probably very soon in Italian…and in English by the fall, probably September or October.
AS: Even in Spanish, it won’t be available in a Borders or Barnes and Noble?
Allende: Yes, in Spanish it will be available…HarperCollins distributes it here.
AS: I want to switch to politics for a moment…Do the events [in Chile] of 1973 still shape your political opinions?
Allende: I think the events of 1973 marked my generation and divided the country in Chile. No one remained neutral after that. For 25 years, people have tried to silence the truth and to be cautious not to provoke any upheaval…because they fear the military and they fear repression and also they fear confrontation. But I think there will be no healing before we start talking about it. My life was shaped by that event because I had to leave my country. When I left my country, my job, my family, my house, everything, I was forced to find something inside me that maybe was always there, this strength that was always there, but I had not had any need to use it. From that experience and from the losses came my first novel. So, I think I am a novelist because of the military coup.
AS: You talk a lot about the spiritual world in your books and you mention having learned the ability to decipher you dreams.
Allende: Some [of them].
AS: Do you believe that dreams speak to everyone? And if they do, what do they tell us?
Allende: Dreams are a way we have of tapping into an unconscious world and getting information that we have gathered, but don’t even know we have stored somewhere. I think that you can develop the ability to remember the dream and in the long run decipher the symbols, which are not the same for everybody. For example, my mother is terrified of snakes. If my mother has a dream about snakes, it’s a nightmare and for her it has a bad meaning. However, if an Indian shaman dreams of snakes, snakes do not have an evil meaning for him or for her.
AS: The dreams are in context of the person who is dreaming them.
Allende: Of course! The culture, and their own experience. What happens in my case, because I have been paying attention to my dreams for so long, I know what they mean most of the time, I can then be more aware of the conscious world. For example, I always give this example about dreaming of babies when I’m writing. (And I only dream of babies when I’m writing!) I have discovered, or I think, that the baby in the dream is the book in real life. And what happens to the baby in the dream, usually, is something that I’m not aware of that is happening to the book. For example, a baby that cries with the voice of an old man. So, the next day I remember the dream, I write it down and then I go to my work and I go through the text again because, most probably, the narrative voice is off, is wrong. So that helps me.
AS: You write [in Paula] very honestly about extremely personal, sometimes very painful experiences. Do your fans approach you sometimes, having met you for the first time, and think they know you through your writing?
Allende: It’s amazing. I find people in the street who treat me as if I was their relative. I also receive an incredible amount of mail from all over the world. At the beginning when the book first was published, I had to hire two people just to open the mail and sort it by languages! If I read the word "Paula" in the letter I knew it was about that book. All those letters were the most moving experience, really. I still do receive many of them…and most of them are about Paula. So, I feel that I have been exposed a lot, but on the other hand, I don’t feel more vulnerable because of that, I feel stronger. In a way, people share with me their own losses.
AS: You have lived in more countries than a lot of people will visit in their lifetime. What has your classroom of the world taught you that couldn’t have been learned in [a regular] school?
Allende: I think one thing you learn very fast is that people are very much alike. The similarities are many more than the differences. We cling to little differences, so little that they are practically insignificant, and that can create a war…While the similarities are extraordinary. If you go to Tibet or Irian Jaya or Africa or South America, you find that mothers love their children the same way, that people fear death and infirmity the same way. We react emotionally very much alike. Once the barrier of the difference in color or cloths or shape is surpassed, then you realize that you can be brothers or sisters with most people! There are always some jerks, of course! (laughter).
AS: We’ve talked about cultural similarities, let’s touch upon some cultural differences. What do you think about the attitude towards sex in Latin America vs. the U.S.?
Allende: In the United States, abortion is legal, sexual education is given at school, the pill is available. In Latin America this is exceptional…The real important things, we [in Latin America] don’t have, however, we have a more open attitude towards sex. Something like what happened to Clinton would have never happened in a Latin Country. People there don’t understand what’s going on. They say, well he had an affair and so what? They even think that it’s virile, that it’s a macho thing…
AS: I was in Ecuador when the news broke. The headline that appeared in one of the Tabloid papers announced in huge letters, "MACHO MAN" with pictures of all of Clinton’s women around it. And I thought, ‘wow", it is just night and day…
Allende: Night and day. So, here there is a very puritanical public attitude, but in private people have more freedom. At 15, children have sex, everything is available, there is a lot of sex on TV and in advertising, much more than in Latin America.
AS: You have moved between cultures so often, voluntarily and otherwise. Do you now feel comfortable in any situation?
Allende: Mostly, I do. I adapt easily, I’m pretty flexible, I can take a lot of discomfort. But I’m not a socialite and will never be. So, I don’t feel comfortable in social events – and I’m invited to a lot! When I travel my greatest fear is that I will be at a cocktail party in some socialite’s house. That terrifies me!
AS: Do you ever feel like you are in a cultural netherworld, half adapted to all cultures, but never fully a part of one?
Allende: My life story has been that I am a foreigner, always. When I was a child, my parents were diplomats and I was always traveling in different countries. In Chile, I feel totally at home, but I don’t want to live in Chile. I want to live here with my children, my grandchildren and my husband. Here, the first thing is the language barrier. The fact that you have to be in another language makes you another person. I’m sure that you feel different when you speak in Spanish.
AS: My friends say I change quite a bit when I speak Spanish.
Allende: You change. Everybody does, and so do I when I speak English or French. I feel very foreign, but I’m comfortable with that. At the beginning I really tried to blend in, I don’t even try anymore.
AS: I want to end our conversation discussing your legacy. People think of you as a feminist writer. You have placed women in your novels as strong protagonists; you have talked about sensual pleasure without guilt in Aphrodite and other books. How would you like to be remembered as a writer?
Allende: As a good storyteller.
AS: …and as a lover?
Allende: I would like to be remembered as a playful lover, although I know that I won’t! (laughter) I’m too intense.
AS: …and as a mother?
Allende: You know, "mother" is an adjective for me, so I would have to say "motherly". My whole life has been determined by the fact that I had these two children. Everything changed in my life and in me because of this. I know that I will be remembered as an overwhelming, totalitarian mother. I would like to be remembered as a very generous one.
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北山 赞了这篇日记 2020-12-01 11:59:37
